PAUL BREMAN • LONDON e-mail: paulbreman@aol.com
9. VITRUVIUS
I dieci libri dell’architettura … tradvtti et commentati da Monsignor Barbaro eletto patriarca d’Aquileggia. Con due tauole, l’una di tutto quello si contiene per i Capi nell’Opera, l’altra per dechiaratione di tutte le cose d’importanza
Vinegia, Francesco Marcolini, 1556
The ultimate Renaissance edition, providing the definitive Italian translation (clear, exact, and readable), the most influential commentary until Perrault’s of 1673, and a great corpus of perfect illustrations, drawn by Palladio.
The editor, Daniello Barbaro (1513-70), born of a noble family which held a variety of high offices under the Venetian Republic, was one of those ‘complete men’ the Renaissance seems to have had almost a monopoly of. He edited the works of his naturalist great-uncle Ermolao Barbaro, wrote a model account of life in England (having been envoy to Henry VIII), was one of the best Aristotle scholars of his age, made his money out of running a highly efficient farm at Maser (where Palladio built him a house), took an active part in social and political life, for his amusement wrote a treatise on perspective - and edited Vitruvius.
His vitruvian text is very carefully and independently established, but is then used mostly as a vehicle on which to hang Barbaro’s own immensely erudite comments - which often lead into long digressions like the one on ‘proportionalità’ at the beginning of book three.
Undoubtedly the one feature on which the lasting appeal, even true immortality, of this edition rests is its corpus of illustrations. Barbaro was aware of this, and pays repeated tribute to his friend Palladio, whose interest in antiquity (first stimulated by Trissino) combined with his enormous practical skill and experience, had enabled him to solve in drawings many a problem which had stumped mere literary scholars. In fact these plates, which transform the art of building from a secret mystique into an exciting visual adventure, are a greater testament to their creator than those in Palladio’s later Quattro libri. The latter show a successful architect looking back on his career, but the Vitruvius plates betray the younger man’s passion for clarity, understanding and communication and make it all the more regrettable that Palladio’s other projected publications never materialized.
Palladio’s drawings, ably transferred to wood by an anonymous artist, already include the theatre reconstruction scheme which would find three-dimensonal expression as the Teatro Olympico at Verona, begun in 1580. Other plates, inevitably, look back rather than forward: Philander has been used for page 121 and is both reproduced and criticized on page 48, while the well-digested influence of Serlio is obvious throughout. The frontispiece and perhaps the title design are by Giuseppe Porta Salviati. None of the illustrations ever appeared again from these same blocks, or even in this same generous size.
Berlin Cat. 1814; Fowler 407; Harvard, Italian 547.
Large folio. 284 + (18) pages, the pages numbered to 274 with duplication of 39-40, 125-28, 133-34 and 156-57.
Large triumphal arch woodcut on title-page, with panel for the type-set title; full-page woodcut frontispiece with similar panel, there left blank, but in the repeat on the last leaf used for the Registro. 18 typographical and 21 woodcut ornamental pieces; woodcut emblem at end of text; 11 large and 116 smaller woodcut initials; 35 woodcut diagrams; 2 cuts of music; 107 woodcut illustrations of which 38 full-page and 5 double-page.
Overlay on page 39(1), volvelle on 228. The overlays on V2v and V3r are identical with the woodcuts on the sheets themselves. Flaps are used to extend the woodcuts on pages 69, 71, 78, 125(1) and 127(1). The illustrations on pages 72 and 85 are covered by cancel plates.
Blank lower corner of the first eight leaves repaired, affecting only the first use of the frontispiece woodcut, and that very slightly. Some quires browned, apparently owing to differences in the paper used. Not the most appealing copy, but complete.
Modern half polished calf, marbled-paper sides.
sold